Sensing/ Intuition
I took the bus to the Quaker meeting. I was scared, because I was dressed female: I felt vulnerable with the people. I did not notice my colleague J until she said Hello, getting off. I put this down to the fear. Well, I had only just started living full time- ie., expressing myself female full time, and I was nervous in public.
And- cycling the other day, Lucrezia had to wave and shout from the pavement before I even noticed her. I could put this down to being more focused on hearing than seeing. There was no intentional snub: I have a well-developed mind’s ear, so I can hear a full orchestra, all the different tones, if I concentrate, but no mind’s eye at all. I cannot visualise something, but, oddly, I can think in pictures to decide what route to take- it is as if I am aware of a sense of a sketch of the place without visualising it. So I could not be a painter, but am a musician. Sometimes, listening to a person, I will close my eyes in order to hear them better.
And- when images do impinge on me, it can give me a moment of intense delight, such as a bird flying in front of my bicycle.
As I understand introversion/extraversion, it appears to include judging/ perceiving: so, as an introvert, I would necessarily prefer judging: thinking/ feeling over perceiving: sensing/ intuiting. Myers and Briggs would divide them. But what would intuiting even mean, when addressed outside?
Well, I love painting and sculpture, and sometimes adopt the posture of the subject, the better to understand the work, firing off my mirror neurons to relate to the outside through my own experience. So I have some empathy, some ability to see another person and imagine what it is like to be them.
Going back to that walking meditation: when we entered the field, we were enraptured by our senses: see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower. I was moving very slowly, paying attention to one small thing and seeing its beauty and moving on to another. And- I called that “Presence”, and wanted to do everything in that state: make decisions, talk to people, be in the supermarket. Rather than connecting to the Outside, Extraversion, it could be connecting to the Sensation function, which has been so secondary for me.
Perhaps I want to make decisions more deeply in the unconscious rather than from a position of Sensing. Decision making is a Judging, not Perceiving, function.
And- Sophia’s 5rhythms dance in the woods, at Midsummer Camp- don’t hug the tree, stand near it and feel its energy, dance with its energy. That meant so much to me, looking up at the tree, or the concrete post, feeling that part of me which related to it. More introverted, but intuitive. I have done it since, with a steel fence. I could do it with a person.
Your sharing does this for me, just as you say in your story: “And- when images do impinge on me, it can give me a moment of intense delight”…i listen inside, then i read your words and i feel delight at the honor of seeing your deep beauty.
Thank you. I do this here rather than in my diary as before, because I wish to be witnessed, because I want to know I am acceptable. Your comment warms me.
i’ll be honest, some blogs are like diaries and i have a low tolerance for many of those…but your sharing is so very much more (and most of your blog entries are intellectual, intelligent, well-written, creative, and potent)…it seems that you share for yourself and you share for the depth and connection of all of humanity…it makes me wish we could meet and go on a long walk-talk together.
I would like that too, cool Gimp-grrl- there is always Skype…
heart! how do you do the things you do???
when i plug into the Skype-age, i must make you the first i call! oh, blush…you called me cool…
wait, why am i blushing when before i was bragging?…gotta get my ego on straight again! will you tell me how you did the heart?
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I keep a Word document with these things to copy from. Here is a change of font:
< pre style=”font-family: Pristina; text-align: center; font-size: 30px; color: #0000ff;”>type text here < /pre> Pristina is the font I am using a lot, but there are a lot of fonts on Word now, and you can choose any of those. Some blogs’ comment boxes will let you do these html instructions: mine will.
And, Poet- you are!
thank you; you are so good at so many things on WP
Clare your ability to consider yourself from every single angle and then share it so candidly with the rest of us continues to be an inspiration. thank you on behalf of us all. Beth
You are welcome. I need to move from a way of being where I find my own spontaneous responses wrong and unacceptable to a way of acceptance. That is why I do this here. It is for myself, to seek to explain things and get them clear in my own mind; and to open myself to other people’s considered responses. And if it pleases you, that is all the better.
Beautiful, Clare. The way I sense – especially in my work as an energy healer and bodyworker is to feel my hands feeling the other. It allows me to sense in a deeper, more intuitive way. And I teach this in my classes. I do something similar to your description of “adopting and posture when looking a painting or sculpture.” When I am doing a “body reading” for a client – that is looking at them in standing to glean information about their structure, I imagine “what it would feel like to be in that body.” It helps me understand how to help them. And these ways of working keep me in the “Presence” rather than my egoic mind.
Cathy
Thank you. If I am to progress in any sort of complementary medicine, these are the skills I need to develop. More on this shortly.
(From one healer to another)… I look forward to reading more!